Chalabi keeps network, could thwart U.S. goals despite fall from grace

The raid by Iraqi police and U.S. agents of the home and political headquarters of controversial politician Ahmed Chalabi seems to mark the dramatic downfall of the man who has long been Washington's closest ally in Iraq.

But Chalabi's days in power may not be over. During the past year, he has amassed a large web of influence and control that stretches from the oil industry to the banking system to the purges of former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party.

Analysts say that unless the Bush administration moves to dismantle his empire, Chalabi will continue controlling much of Iraq's politics from behind the scenes, and he could seriously disrupt American plans for turning over nominal sovereignty to a new Iraqi government on June 30.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/05/21/MNG5F6PP2T1.DTL&type=printable

What an awful, shitty mess Iraq has become.....

This guy is a crook. I am not sure how he met the VP, but it is a well-known fact that Chalabi was thrown out of Jordan for white collar crimes.

birds of a feather...

I think Spiro Agnew introduced Cheney to Chalabi, LOL!!

I'm not sure if it was Hardball, but one of the speakers said that Chalabi met Cheney during the 2000 campaign.

Those cable network whores like to set us up. cnn - faux - msnbc

as head of the Defense Policy Board to become "only" a member?

Seems like the nephew is keeping his job for now as well.

I'm still not sure on this one.

is really on their side and not a puppet of BushInc. This way he curries favor with the formerly skeptical and they vote him in at election time as the man who stood up to Bush.

This is SO like them.

it sounds like a done deal...you do not go from the darling of the Defense Dept. and a personal invite to the SOTU to the trash heap just like that. He is asswipe*'s boy the whole way...

Neocon Lets Cat Out of Bag
Robert Dreyfuss
May 19, 2004
Michael Rubin a young staffer at the American Enterprise Institute who's just left the Pentagon, where he played a small role as a neocon cog in the Office of Special Plans war machine?let a herd of cats out of the bag about his favorite Iraqi phony, Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress.
...

"By telegraphing that he is not the favorite son of America, the administration will bolster him, showing he is his own man."

In other words, it?s all a big con game. The still-neocon-dominated Pentagon?which this week stopped funding Chalabi?s INC ?is playing its last card, hoping that it can boost Chalabi?s sagging fortunes by pretending to sever ties with him. That, the neocons hope, will allow Chalabi to strengthen his ties to Sistani, the king-making mullah who, they hope, holds Iraq?s fate in his wrinkled hands.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/neocon_lets_cat_out_of_bag.php

with Chalabi in a headband and an RPG on his shoulder.
Like Rambo in "First Blood".

blm: I agree. The intensity with which the Chalabi stories have been reported in the news this week makes me skeptical. It seems like a plan to put Chalabi up as persona-non-grata to the USA and therefore more acceptable to the Iraqis. Makes you wonder if they will fall for it !!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

You have the think Òbelow the beltÓ with this Bushie group.

I have never been impressed by the con artist Chalabi but Hoagland in the WP raises some interesting points such as the CIA only turned on him in 1997 "when he went public in an interview with me about the CIA's expensive, ambivalent and failed covert efforts to overthrow the Iraqi dictator." Only after that did he "become a target of agency's ire, defamatory leaks and worse."

Hoagland than goes on to say "Chalabi added White House staffers and Paul Bremer to the long list of those he has offended and challenged with his domineering manner, prickly sense of nationalism and unshakable self-confidence. By coming out in open, bitter opposition to the latest U.S. transition plan and its rehabilitation of senior Baathists, Chalabi seems to have crossed a final red line."

"the impression that heavy-handed tactics have been used primarily to silence an effective critic of re-Baathification is inescapable."

He closes by suggesting "Baghdad is rapidly turning into a latter-day Saigon -- a place where intelligence agents and prison guards are laws unto themselves and take revenge on uppity locals while senior Americans help or look the other way. Is this the "democracy" President Bush promised to Iraq?"

To read it all http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43935-2004May20.html

He faithfully transcribed everything Chalabi and his gang told him and convinced a lot of people that Saddam had WMD and boiling oil pits and God only knows what other nonsense.

His continuing to defend Chalabi doesn't improve his credibility imho.

Please don't get me wrong I don't think Chalabi is any kind of prize. I just thought it was interesting that the reason the CIA didn't like him was not because they had deep insight but simply because he humiliated them.

Baghdad is the Capitol of Iraq-Nam

It is the newest represented commonwealth, of the wealthiest nation in the Western Hemisphere,
the Consolidated Corporate States of North Amerika N.A. It may become the 53rd State of this
powerful Union


IRAQ-NAM, is a ruthless, vicious place that asks No Quarter and Gives None.

It is ruled by Viceroy Pontius Paul Bremer appointed by Cheney Caesar, in the year of Our Lord Two
thousand Three A. D.

Death here rides a Pale Horse.

Death claims in no particular order, the Innocent, the Guilty, the Unlucky and the Careless.